The Phantom's Torture
by Soprano-and-Shoes
Summary: The rest of my life is retribution, and they must have been sent to create a living hell for me.   An anomaly in the space/time continuum has sent five young women to Paris where surviving the Phantom is not as easy as it seems.
1. It Begins

The children huddled closer, leaning toward the figure in the chair with the suppressed air of anticipation. The woman rested against the chair back, searching for the right words. "Our story begins, as these stories often do, on a rather unassuming November night. Not cold enough for winter, not warm enough for fall. It is here we find five teenage girls, sheltering from the weather in a comfortable basement."

"Please? Please? Oh, please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh plleeeeaaasssee!" Mira was on her knees, begging the one person standing between her and her newest favorite movie.

"No, no, and no." Elizabeth replied, "I absolutely refuse."

"But, it's Gerard Butler! How can you say no to Gerard Butler?" The smaller girl's voice was reaching higher with every word.

"No," was her flat reply.

"Come on Elizabeth, it's her house, don't you think you should humor her?" A hispanic girl asked from her lazy perch in an arm chair across the room.

"Yeah, listen to Elizabeth, Elizabeth!" Mira chimed.

"If I've asked you once, I've asked you a thousand times, just call me Beth." The half Nicaraguan said, searching in her bag for the package of twizzlers she was sure existed, "All this Elizabeth and other Elizabeth stuff is just so complicated. Beth works better than trying to call us the same name."

"Alright then, Beth, my answer is still no." Elizabeth replied, pushing her short, dark blonde hair back for the umpteenth time.

"We got the food!" a new voice announced, bringing with it the smell of bubbling cheese and hot bread.

"Yeah, ten bucks for a pizza! Next time we might as well make the trip to Little Caesar's." The fifth girl flopped onto the carpet with a humongous bowl of popcorn and a king size bag of tootsie rolls. "So, we pick a movie yet?" Gwen asked, glancing at the store of about a hundred movies trapped in a binder.

"I want to watch Phantom, but Elizabeth won't let me!" Mira whined to her best friend.

"Elizabeth." Adrienne said setting down the pizza, "Be nice. It's her house."

"That's what I said." Beth interjected.

"I am not going to watch some dumb movie about a crazy stalker because-"

"Where's the remote?" Gwen interrupted. All five girls glanced around, not finding the device anywhere. As Adrienne and Beth searched between seat cushions and Mira put on her best puppy dog eyes, Elizabeth continued, "Because my friend thinks that it's a brilliant film. It's Joel Schumacher; I doubt it's that good."

"A bat credit card?" Adrienne exclaimed causing giggles to abound.

"Exactly my point, the guy makes a mockery of Batman, what is he going to do to-" Elizabeth was cut off a second time by loud music and dimming lights. She sent a glare that could peel paint in Gwen's direction.

"This is a democracy. I've just made the presidential decision to override you and go with the majority vote. Besides, no remote means you can't change the channel or the film. " She told her friend with a triumphant smirk.

"I'll deal with you later." The threat was heard by all, causing even more giggles.

"Oh, come on, even the deer heads want to watch the movie! See, they're looking at the TV." The other girl said gesturing at the four stuffed deer hanging from the wall, each positioned toward the big screen.

"That's not funny." Mira told her, glaring at the taxidermy animals. Her hatred of them rivaled only her hatred of spiders and clowns.

"Shh, the movie's starting." Beth told her, immediately taking her mind off dead deer and on to hot Scottish men. The first half an hour of movie went well, comments only being made on the atrocities of Carlotta's singing, quickly shushed by Mira (whose like of the character and her singing was beyond rational thought).

"Insolent boy, this slave of fashion, basking in your glory!" Adrienne tugged lightly on her long brown hair, a tingling feeling going down her arms. Something felt wrong, she liked Gerard's singing, but it wasn't enough to give her chills, was it? Maybe it was just cold in this basement. That had to be it.

Beth rubbed her temple, trying to sway a sudden head ache. She felt like the pressure in the room had just doubled, which was completely impossible without some sort of compressor. Even with her inner scientist arguing principles of physics, she scrunched her forehead and closed her eyes in discomfort.

Mira snuggled closer under her blanket, trying to stave off the shivers running up and down her spine. Perhaps she should listen to Elizabeth and look into some other men for a while. The worst Gerard had ever made her do before was forget to keep her balance. The blanket wrapped tighter, maybe it was a combo of Gerard and sugar.

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose in discomfort. Not from the man singing, her nose itched like fire. It was as if someone had just shoved a dusty rag over her face. Mira had a cat; it was probably her allergies acting up. There was cat hair all over this house; it had to be that, pet dander allergies ran in the family after all.

Gwen blinked and pressed against the wall, fighting the sudden head rush. As the sparkles and darkness cleared from her vision, she shook her head. That was strange; normally she only got those from standing up too quickly. Apparently stretching her neck could trigger it too? She'd have to check that out, once this next head rushed stopped.

"I am your angel of music…come to me angel of music." As if the world had suddenly changed its axis, there was a flash of light; it felt like the room had spun on its head and the very fabric of reality was heaving uncontrollably.

Mira picked herself up off of the floor, rubbing her still spinning head. At one glance, her hand fell down to her side, "No…way." They were on the shore of an underground lake. The area was dimly lit by candles.

"What the hell just happened?" said Gwen.

"Not a clue," said Beth. "Is everyone okay?"

"Fine," said Elizabeth. "Adrienne? Mira?"

"I'm okay," said Adrienne. She looked around. "I'd say the house fell into a sinkhole, but we'd probably be dead."

"Maybe we are," said Beth.

"What, so it's a mild level of hell?"  
>"Nah, it looks familiar," said Gwen. "Mira, you with us?"<br>Mira was staring at their surroundings in shock. "Guys, I think we're in the Phantom's lair."  
>"That's fiction, honey," said Elizabeth.<p>

"Dude. Organ." They looked where she was pointing. There was indeed an organ-none of them had noticed earlier, due to having slightly more important things to worry about. Various exclamations of shock followed.

"Do you think he still lives here?" Beth asked.

"It doesn't look destroyed, so yeah," said Adrienne. "I say we get out of here."

"And go where?" said Elizabeth.

"Anywhere that isn't here."

"In the nineteenth century," said Gwen. "With one person who speaks French. That's gonna go great."

"Or we can stay here and get strangled," said Adrienne. "I'd really rather get arrested for public indecency."

"He wouldn't kill us right away, would he?" said Mira.

"I guess it depends on which version lives here," said Gwen. "If it's the one from the movie, we might have a chance. Book version, we're screwed."

"Thank you Gwen, for that warm and comforting thought," Beth said, "However, I think our best bet is to either A, find the guy that's apparently going to try and murder us, or B, just have a look around."

"Beth's got a point. We'll go this way, you go that way." Elizabeth said in a tone that did not allow for argument.

"I guess we'll go this way then," Mira replied, grabbing Adrienne's arm and tugging her away in the opposite direction. Gwen glanced between both groups of friend.

"Well, there goes the idea of looking at the pipe organ," she muttered before catching up with Mira and Adrienne. "So, if we're here…do you think the pizza came too?"

"Gwen, do you think about things other than food?" Mira asked.

"Of course I do."

"Yeah, music and bad jokes," Adrienne added. Their laughter echoed in the cavern behind them. Slowly and silently, the Phantom of the Opera detached himself from the shadows of the doorway he'd been lurking in. There was something wrong with those people, that was sure. How had they managed to get into his lair though? His security was of the utmost importance, and if they knew how to get down here, was it possible that other people did too?

It was decided then, he would find out who they were and how they got here. As for letting them live…Erik hated to be so wasteful as to kill five people at once (not to mention the mess), and part of him detested the idea of killing defenseless young women, even if they were probably escapees from an insane asylum. He'd decide on killing them after he found out how much they knew.

"You think we're actually in the Phantom's Opera house?" Beth asked, holding her stolen candle a little higher to see the path ahead. She wasn't sure if they were still in the house or in a secret passage, once the light of the main from had disappeared, it was impossible to tell what the surroundings were.

"I don't know. Part of me wants to say it's a dream, but another part of me knows that I would never dream this up," Elizabeth replied, eyes searching the shadows for something, anything.

"Hey! That's my bag!" Beth exclaimed, stepping away from her friend and bending down next to the duffle she had packed earlier that day. "I wonder how it got here." Elizabeth shrugged in response. Beth set down the candle to look and see if it still had her things inside.

"I found the pizza! And it's still warm!" Mira exclaimed, opening the cardboard box still filled with cheesy delight.

"Well, I guess whatever brought us here took other things in the basement too. Maybe we'll get lucky and the couch will have landed on the Phantom and he won't be able to kill us." Adrienne replied, seeing Beth's twizzlers and Gwen's tootsie rolls laying haphazardly on a small table.

"Adrienne!" Mira stood up, attempting to put herself nose to nose with a girl four inches taller than her, "You shouldn't say things like that. Besides, what about the butterfly effect?" she asked with a smirk at her sci-fi nerd friend.

"To be honest, us even showing up here is a butterfly effect that probably would have caused the universe to explode if that theory were true."

"Well, I think-" Mira finished her sentence with a scream as an unknown hand grabbed her arm.


	2. This is your Lair? All yours?

"What was that?" Elizabeth asked, looking around.

"Sounded like Mira." Beth said, standing up. They looked at each other. "You think she's in trouble?"

"That, or she just saw a spider or a clown." Elizabeth replied.

"It's me! It's me! Calm down!" Gwen said, stepping into the candle light, "Relax! I'm sorry!"

"Sorry?" Mira squealed, "You scared me half to death!"

"Thought I was the big scary Phantom out to get you?" she asked with a laugh.

"It's not funny Gwen! You seriously freaked me out."

"Me too," Adrienne added on, "I wish you would learn to make noise like normal people. Or just announce your presence instead of appearing out of nowhere." The other girl shrugged.

"I don't hear anything else." Beth said, "You think it was nothing?"

"Well, considering that it could very well have been a spider, and I don't hear Gwen or Adrienne screaming, yes. That… or the Phantom killed all three of them really quickly." The laugh at the end of her sentence wasn't as real as she hoped. Beth bent down next to her bag again, actually managing to open it without interruption.

"Well, looks like all my stuff is in here. Wait a second, my twizzlers aren't here. That's a shame." While Beth spoke, Elizabeth glanced around. She thought she heard fabric rustling. There was nothing now, maybe it was just her friends again? "I mean not that I really needed the entire bag, but I would have liked to have had them." Elizabeth let out a muffled yell as two very strong hands grabbed her. She didn't think, she reacted with every ounce of self defense class knowledge, her head whipping back into the general area of the person's nose. A pained yell was her reward.

By now Beth had come to her aide, leaping at the attacker, who somehow was still in the shadows. The hands released her and shoved Beth away. The Phantom never got the chance to shrink back into the shadows. Another athletic body had pelted into him sending them both careening.

Adrienne and Mira came running after their friend. "What the hell is going on?" Mira demanded. The light of two candles managed to illuminate the rest of the room a little more.

"I found the Phantom." Gwen said with a mix of humor and terror. Tackling the Phantom had seemed like such a good idea at the time, but the fact that he was much larger and much stronger than her hadn't come into the equation.

"Tell me who you are and how you got down here," he said, the threat in his voice was unmistakable. Everyone stood there, staring at him, "Now."

"Okay! Okay! Names! Umm," Mira felt like she was shouting in comparison, "I'm Mira. This is Adrienne, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, and the person you're currently…" holding hostage seemed like it was likely to have bad repercussions, "well, she's Gwen." There was a pause.

"You still haven't answered my second question."

"We don't know," Beth spoke up when words failed Mira, failed everyone really. How could they explain that they'd been watching a movie in the 21st century and ended up in the 19th? "We got lost and accidentally ended up here. Completely by mistake I can assure you." He surveyed her for a moment, as if he could tell whether she was lying simply by looking at her.

"And your state of dress?" Adrienne could have sworn there was an undertone of humor in the question, but then…five girls, three in pajama pants, one in a black and white dress, and the fifth in skinny jeans and a tank top…probably didn't fit well in the 1870s. Everyone glanced around, what could they say about that?

"Costumes," Adrienne said suddenly.

"I beg your pardon?" the Phantom's tone couldn't have disagreed with his statement more.

"Costumes," Elizabeth repeated, "We were on our way to a costume party when we got lost. We're obviously not from around here and got our directions mixed up." No one else said anything to back her up, "We were supposed to look like we escaped from an insane asylum."

"You succeeded," he said dryly.

"So, we answered your questions. Can you please let our friend go and we'll just be on our merry way?" No one asked Adrienne where 'our merry way' was. He silently debated, they seemed relatively harmless (and quite possibly as insane as they were pretending), the likelihood of anyone believing that they'd actually seen the Phantom of the Opera was slim. Did he want to take the risk and let them go?

"Come on Erik, please?" Mira said when she couldn't stand the silence any longer. Gwen yelped as the grip on her neck suddenly tightened.

"What did you just say?" he demanded. The subtle glares being shot her way did not escape his attention, "How, exactly, do you know my name?" Erik snarled. There was no point in denying that he was, indeed, Erik.

"Lucky guess," Mira offered weakly, "It was between Erik or Sean, I just felt like you looked more like an Erik."

"Tell the truth." Gwen made a gasping noise as his grip tightened compulsively.

"The truth?" she half wheezed, "I'll tell you the truth, just let go of my neck." It was the looks of silent horror on the other girls' faces that made him finally switch his grip. "The truth is, we know a lot about you…or as much as someone can know about someone like you. Though, now that I see you, you're definitely not seven feet tall. Whether or not you can breathe fire is still up for debate though." Not a single one of her friends had any idea what Gwen was saying, but they didn't have anything better. "It's surprisingly easy to find people that are willing to talk about the Opera Ghost who caused the famous disaster. So, we did some research."

"We even read a book," Adrienne muttered before Beth and Elizabeth silently elbowed her.

"A rainy day project, if you will," she continued on, "because let's face it, who isn't fascinated by this sort of thing?"

"That still doesn't explain how you know my name." Despite her explanations, his voice wasn't any friendlier than it had been. There were very few people on the planet that knew Erik's name, and even fewer that those girls would have been able to track down.

"I believe you are familiar with" Gwen cast around for a name, "the Viscount de Chagny?" The girls' looks became even more horrified, as one of them face palmed and another looked like she wanted to burst into tears. "He was quite reluctant to talk about the subject. Your name was the only question he saw fit to answer." She took a step towards her friend, "Speaking of questions, it seems we've answered all of yours, so then we'll just get out of your hair. It was….lovely meeting you."

"Not quite." Gwen gently attempted to yank her arm out of his grip to no avail, "You see, I happen to know it's quite impossible to get lost and find this place. So, if the Viscount didn't tell you how to find me, who did?"

"Oh, this is your Lair?" Adrienne asked, "All yours? Beth, did you know that?"

"No, no. Of course not, I had no idea this lovely lair was his. Did you?" the Hispanic girl replied.

"No!" the both turned to their smaller friend, "Meg?"

"Uh-huh!" she said brightly, the horrible consequences of what she said hit her a split second later, "Huh-uh." She scrambled to fix her mistake. "What I meant was that I figured out that this beautiful establishment was his after we ran into him, because I mean, who else would decorate this wonderfully? I mean-"

"Quiet!" silence fell rather quickly. "Tell me who got you down here."

"Uhh…" no one seemed to have an answer. It was Elizabeth who came to the rescue. Thinking on her feet, she repeated Gwen's earlier action, careening into the Phantom and his hostage, the combination of force and weight sent all three of them falling backward. The back of Erik's head met the very solid rock floor and he didn't get up.

"Did you kill him?" Mira squeaked. Gwen felt for a pulse.

"No, he's definitely still alive."

"Great, let's get out of here!" Beth said, grabbing her bag and running for the door. Elizabeth pulled Mira with her and Adrienne helped Gwen up. None of them notice the small, but all so important, rectangular device fall out of Gwen's pocket and next to the unconscious Phantom.


End file.
